Don't get your hopes up if you are 11 or older

Rating: 5/10 (10 January 2014)

After the intriguing Pan's Labyrinth, we were, perhaps, entitled to expect something with a little more brains from Guillermo del Toro. Well, Pacific Rim sadly isn't it. It isn't bad as blockbusters go (and I should admit I, for one, am usually underwhelmed by blockbusters, even ones which are better than this), but it falls down in areas where a film should be strong whatever genre it is and whatever demographic it serves (in the case of Pacific Rim I suspect that is 11-year-old boys).
The characters struggle even to be two-dimensional, the 'plot' and it's explanation is a tad too simplistic even for a blockbuster, the dialogue is horribly predictable and the 'fight' scenes all go on just a little too long. In a way it's as though del Toro got a Build Your Own Blockbuster kit for Christmas and put it all together without really consulting the manual. I, for one, wanted to know more about the Kaju, the monsters from deep who are destroying the world. What were they? Where did they come from? Did they agree with Obamacare or did they (rather more probably given how fierce and unremitting they were to destroy all before them) incline more to the Tea Party? That kind of thing.
Then there were the jaegers, the monstrously large robots humankind had developed to kill them: how come, for example, they didn't leak when under water? How were they powered? How come, what with all the technology we had at our disposal to design and build them in the first place, the best they can resort to when destroying a kaju is a heavy bout of fisticuffs and knocking six bells out of their kaju opponent? The problem with Pacific Rim is that del Toro comes up with some neat ideas, but then explores the wrong parts of them.
Being a sci-fi offering, it is reasonably easy to buy into the notion that each jaeger has to be operated by two folk in tandem who have to 'share' their brains and memories. Hogwash, yes, but what they hell. But apart from telling us that that's the deal, del Toro doesn't bother developing the notion, which might well have offered fertile ground for invention. Where Pacific Rim does score is in special effects: they are very well done, though - back to griping mode - once you have seen one city obliterated by a kaju stomping through it, the wonder of it all does tend to fade rather quickly.
I can't think director del Toro had much to do with bringing about the special effects other than writing his brief ('I want monsters that look like reptilian dinosaurs, but which emit an eery blue light from their throats. By Friday. Oh, and they must be Republican supporters or the young shavers watching this film just won't be persuaded') so whoever operated the PCs for the CGI and designed it all should get a cheer or two. But a film needs more than just neat CGI.
The characters: the grizzled, dedicated leader who gives his life for mankind (Idris Elba), the pretty female aide who demonstrates she's as good as any boy (Rinko Kikuchi), Our Hero (Charlie Hunnam), the Oz father and son team (Max Martini and Robert Kazinsky), the obligatory faux comedy double-act (Burn Gornam and Charlie Day) and a - very underused - criminal mastermind (Ron Perlman) have about as much life about them as your average stock comic book protagonist, but the actors say the corny lines they are given, always find their marks and generally don't disgrace themselves, even if none is a contender for this year's Oscars. All, I'm sure, would cope with more demanding material without any bother at all.
So there you have it. If you like hamburgers, this most certainly looks the part of a hamburger and then some. If you actually want it to taste of hamburger, save Pacific Rim for another day. At the time of writing IMDb users have given this an average 7.4/10. Don't be fooled. I've seen a lot better, despite the CGI.